


Instruments of torture

by Nanowhymo (spiderstanspiderstan)



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Gift Fic, Music shop, graphic depiction of instrument destruction, no betas we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-09-28 09:39:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17180516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiderstanspiderstan/pseuds/Nanowhymo
Summary: In which Peridot picks out a musical instrument to play.





	Instruments of torture

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Platon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Platon/gifts).



> For the 2018 r/fanfiction discord holiday pledge :)

Beach City Beats was a squat, pink-walled building, the paint on its outer boards bleached on one side by the sunshine.

Steven had been there a hundred times, to the tiny music shop on the bayside, for strings and picks and finger-dot stickers. But he’d never been there with Peridot before.

He lead her up the stairs from the warm concrete sidewalk. The three bells at the top of the door frame chimed a twinkling chord.

“Hi, Madam Minuet!” Steven called, into the apparent emptiness of the shop. It occupied the lower floor of its owner’s house, a carpeted staircase concealed behind shelves of music books in the corner. The room was air-conditioned cool, kept dry for the sake of delicate instruments.

Steven’s ukulele had been to the bottom of the ocean and to space, and it seemed fine. Mme.Minuet was probably overcompensating a little.

She swooped down the staircase, a towering figure of angular bones and flowy clothing, her coily hair stood up about her head as though she’d been given an electric shock.

“Seven!” she crowed. “Oh, who’s your friend?”

Peridot seemed to be trying to hide her entire body behind Steven’s, so he stepped to the side, and took her hand.

“This is Peridot,” he said. “And she wants to learn an instrument, so we can do duets!”

"Oh, how exciting!" Mme.Minuet stooped to meet Peridot's eye. "And what would you like to play?"  

Peridot gulped.

"I don't... know yet?" she said, looking nervously around the cramped store. Steven watched her panic with moderate amusement—  Mme.Minuet was one of the most intense people he’d met that wasn’t an alien dictator, so he could understand her wariness, but in reality she wouldn’t hurt a fly. 

“That’s alright, dear,” Mme.Minuet said, patting Peridot’s shoulder. “You can try some out! Let’s start you on strings.” 

She swooped through the store, and Peridot was left gawking as she glided to a stop before a wall of violins, then picked one up to tune. 

“Violins are fun!” Steven said, trying to cheer Peridot up a bit. The poor gem looked like a deer in the headlights. 

“Are they like your ukulele?”  Peridot nervously mimed strumming.  

“Not quite…” Steven answered, watching as a violin was pushed into Peridot’s hands, her head twisted to meet the chinrest. 

“Pluck a string!” Mme.Minuet encouraged. 

Peridot did so, and the violin made a sound no violin ever had before. 

Her finger plucked the leftmost string, and the high-pitched hum of it sharply escalated into a horrendous, shrill whine, which reached an ear-splitting crescendo, then culminated in a pathetic  _ ting!  _ as the string snapped. 

The violin clattered to the floor. The only sound was the distance lapping of the ocean. 

“Well that was ineffective.” Peridot said, looking at the instrument like it had personally let her down. 

“Hmm…” Mme.Minuet picked up the violin, examining it for further damage. Shrugging, she set it down on the shop counter, and reached for a curly-looking brass instrument on the wall. 

“Euphonium.” she announced, and demonstrated the embochure. 

Peridot puffed her cheeks and tried her  _ darndest _ . 

She managed a loud  _ blart _ -ing note, and pressed down the valves. 

The instrument exploded. 

Shards of brass unfurled like the petals of a flower, hurtling themselves across the room, raining down like glittering confetti, and barely missing the two humans present. They lodged themselves in the ceiling and floor, impaled some of the other instruments, and shattered the light fixture, leaving the lampshade swinging. 

“Well!” Mme.Minuet said, picking a shard out of her hair. “ _ That’s  _ never happened before!”

“I’m sorry.” Peridot said. “I didn’t mean to break your… earth...horn...thing.” 

“Maybe you’d do better on woodwind…” 

The clarinet became a frag bomb of flying keys, buttons cracking free from the dark wood. A flute seemed horrified at her touch, and split itself back into its constituent peices. A trombone slide rocketed through a window; the strings of a harp split and curled up like springs.

“This isn’t  _ working _ , Steven!” Peridot said.

“No, no, there must be something…” Mme. Minuet insisted. “How about a xylophone? Those are mostly wood!” 

That question was answered when the screws holding the thing together tinkled to the floor, and the remainder of the instrument fell to the floor in a series of pretty  _ clonk _ ing sounds. Peridot buried her head in her hands. 

The realisation hit Steven like a punch. 

“It’s  _ metal! _ ” He said. “Things aren’t working because of the  _ metal _ !” 

Peridot blinked.  
  
“Am I...not supposed to control the metal?” she asked. “Steven, they all have metal!” 

They stood in the wreckage of an orchestra, and thought on how to fix the problem.  
  
“How about a theramin?” Mme. Minuet suggested. “That might work.” 

Peridot’s nose wrinkled at the unfamiliar sound. 

“What’s a ‘Theramin’?” 

A Theramin, it turned out, was a mysterious wooden box on a pole that put it at chest height. A metal rod stuck upwards from one side, a looped peice of metal extending from the other. Buttons and dials patterned the front. 

“I do so  _ adore  _ the theramin,” Mme. Minuet said, twisting some of the dials. “I’m not the greatest player, but…” 

She positioned her hands—  one poised by the upwards rod, the other half-curled above the looped one.

And began to play. 

It was a beautiful, mournful sound. Like a human voice—  like song, like  _ weeping _ . 

She moved through the first ten seconds or so of a song Steven recognised as Handel’s  _ Sarabande _ —  mournful and perfect. Peridot’s eyes went wide, and she took a tentative step forwards. 

“There were no instruments, on homeworld…” she said. 

Mme. Minuet stepped aside, gently positioning Peridot’s hands. 

Peridot fluttered her fingers. Stumbled through a scale. 

Then, tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth, she began to play a song. 

The first few notes were halting, improperly timed.

And all at once it  _ clicked  _

“Life and death and love and birth…” Steven began, tapping his foot to to the beat, matching the instrument’s innate key shift.

When the song— altered as it was, altered to her, so much purely Peridot made his heart ache—  she stepped out from behind the instrument, beaming like the sun. 

“You did it!” Steven said, mirroring her smile. 

He threw his arms around her, pressed their foreheads together. She titled the gesture into a millisecond of a kiss. 

“ _ We  _ did it.”


End file.
